


Box o' Feelin's

by LydiaWrenWolfram



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M, I felt like getting into Sweeney's head and damn it's melancholy in there, Post Episode season 2 episode 3, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaWrenWolfram/pseuds/LydiaWrenWolfram
Summary: I felt like writing a bit of drabble after the third episode, there were tiny little things I saw that made me wonder what might have floated through Mad Sweeney's head at certain parts.  Covers parts of episodes 2 and 3.  Its full of restrained feeling. Hope you enjoy :)





	Box o' Feelin's

 

No one asked him to stay anymore. No one cared about the heart of melted gold underneath the wild, mad and aggressive exterior. No one needed him to inspire them anymore. No one needed favors with loopholes and good luck. 

Sure… Essie wasn’t the last fervent believer. Hell, some of those witchcraft-y girls still laid out an offering or two, little girls made their fairy gardens and houses and that brought him smiles and amusement. He’d always loved children; their belief was pure and had no trace of doubt. But even the witches were weak in their petitions to him, they had a muted view of his kind and there was a tender of fear. “To keep the Fae away” was the intent behind their offerings now. 

Maybe that’s why he was pulled to Laura like a magnet. She *hated* him. She was fire and rage and not a damned trace of fear in her. He reminded himself every day the only reason he was intent on helping her was because of his coin, but his inner self laughed at him, mocking him of the day he placed it back in her chest after the truck crash. He had not had a woman like her in his life for a very long time. His lovers were willing and sometimes a bit vapid if human, and no emotional connection with the Other worldly beings. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to feel drawn to someone by the heartstrings. It was a foreign feeling, one he labeled “Kind compassion and sympathy and another symptom of madness”, locked it in a box and shoved it to the back of his mind. But like most haunted boxes, it rattled and shook and moaned for attention.  
This is why he hid his face in the corner away from Odin’s all knowing, all seeing eye when Laura and he shared insults. Grimnir would use these feelings against him, because if he allowed them to grow, they would become a weakness. It was better to stare out the window of the funeral home and come up with a good comeback than to show the old Norse God how her “coward” cut him far too deeply than it should have. 

Coward. That was a good one. The anger was real when he’d clapped back, he was putting his neck so far out for her, if he really wanted his coin, he could get it. Plunge his massive hand through her chest and pluck it out while watching her grey, dead eyes congeal over and her lips go even bluer. But that thought made that box of feelings rattle and jump up and down on his heart, he focused harder on a tree outside, breathing better when Odin looked away and focused his attention on Laura and Mr. Ibis.  
She was obsessed with saving Shadow, though Sweeney knew good and well he was lost to the allure of Wednesday. Besides, Laura wasn’t the same woman Shadow had married. Death became her. Sweeney knew her obsession was more guilt based than love based. She believed in him sure, but given the circumstances of her death, she lied to herself as to why. She wanted to be alive again, but for her own selfish reasons, not for anything else. Sweeney admired that. 

He thought momentarily back to that moment on the bridge, after taking her through the horde. While they had traveled, she had clung to him, her fingers digging in as if she wanted to walk inside of him for protection from the pressure and pain of passage. It had made that box of feelings explode open and made him feel needed. Her arms had been tight around him, and even after they landed for a few moments she had kept the contact. When it was gone, he was quick to not show how it had made him feel. Nailed that feelin’s box right back up. Her fingers had been gentle in their strength when they broke the cuffs off him, the cold finger tips still sending electrical pulses through his system. Their insults to each other had been weak and she hadn’t taken his bait. For a moment he wondered if she had her own box of feelings, but then she dived off to the train and he followed her, for coin and for back up. Maybe she’d get split apart again and he’d pluck his coin and move on with his life, destroy that box o’ feelin’s forever.  
She’d split apart alright. And he’d dutifully picked her up under Odin’s orders, and now here they were with her cutting tongue and he was telling himself how truly mad he was to keep helping her. It was truly best to just get his luck back, he decided. She would never ask him to stay. She would never worship him the way he needed, she would never adore his light the way she chased after Shadow’s sunbeam. It was just a symptom of foolish madness, a trick of the light in his eternal curse. And with that the box of feelings stopped rumbling and sank into his heart with the pain of a thousand knives. Foolish he was. 

When he dreamed later, in the midst of more bouts of terrible luck, riding with the Jesus freaks… that damned box started rumbling again and visions of Laura alive and whole filled his head. In his dreams, whatever price the Baron asked he gave and he could almost feel her kiss upon his lips, her sunny smile just for him, her gratitude not only worshiping him but putting him in her debt, all memory of Odin’s boy gone she twirled for him in fields of clover, barefoot in a flowery sundress, alive and his. His lucky coin became human and became her. But of course it was just a dream, just like any pleasant memory Sweeney had. Something of fog and madness and thank fuck the freaks were smart enough to not ask why the Leprechaun looked so melancholy out the window at the passing fields. Boxes o’ feelin’s needed to die.


End file.
